Sacramento man convicted of murder in 2006 shooting at West Sacramento bar

A Yolo County jury today convicted a Sacramento man of first-degree murder in the 2006 shooting death of a janitor at a West Sacramento bar.

In rendering the guilty verdict against 29-year-old Juan Antonio Gonzales, the jury also found true the special circumstance that Gonzales committed the murder during a robbery, according to a Yolo County District Attorney’s Office news release.

On June 18, 2006, Alfonso Prado, a janitor at Ortega’s West in West Sacramento was cleaning the bar when individuals entered and robbed Prado of his belongings, officials said. During the robbery, the intruders shot Prado in the chest, killing him.

Three days later, the Sacramento Police Department recovered a handgun and entered identifying information into the National Ballistics Network. Two years later, a “cold hit” established that this gun, which was last in the possession of an associate of Gonzales, was the weapon used to kill Prado, officials said.

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A year later, the California Department of Justice Criminalistics Laboratory, received a cold hit identification establishing that a small amount of blood found at the scene matched DNA from Gonzales that was in the national DNA database.

Gonzales is to be sentenced March 3 by Yolo Superior Court Judge Stephen L. Mock.